


when the hydrangeas bloom

by enmity



Category: Persona 2, Persona Series
Genre: Confessions, F/F, Fluff (!), Shoujo Manga (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 21:01:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13889052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmity/pseuds/enmity
Summary: Sooner or later, something has to give.





	when the hydrangeas bloom

**Author's Note:**

> finally i remember how to write something not wack and not het ghfgdf i saw two girls lying on the front porch chilling several days ago on my way home & it stuck w/ me thats why theyre on the floor in this
> 
> (implied unrequited) chika->lisa and nori->anna are alluded to, i hope that's clear enough but just in case

It’s when they’re sprawled on their sides reading on the front terrace that something gives. The breeze’s quieted down; the summer heat beats down on them and Chika’s knees feel oddly sticky as she brings her legs together and pulls herself up to sit cross-legged on the floor. Noriko puts down the manga she’d been burying her nose in – one of Chika’s that she’d filched from the bookcase out of curiosity; she was never much a reader – and looks at her, her eyebrows raised in an unsaid question.

She looks nice with her hair down like that, Chika notes absently, almost fond, and has to remind herself of the ugliness of jealousy a second later. Noriko doesn’t seem to notice, but Chika smiles anyway, airily, all Chikalin-like. The taste of the popsicle they’d shared on their way back from the minimarket sticks to the back of her tongue, cloying and artificial, and she swallows. They were supposed to be working on summer homework, she remembers vaguely. Blueberry. Her knees press onto the cold floor. These things all taste the same, really.

“Do you think that could ever be us?”

Noriko doesn’t follow. She lies on her back and stares at the wind-chimes hung by the terrace roof, silent in the deadened air, and squints. “What?”

She runs her thumb across the slightly-worn spine of the book. A fairytale. A girl wakes up to find she’s the destined person of a prince who’s so handsome and rich he might as well have emerged from another dimension entirely. A story _she’d_ have liked, and Chika’s smile falters just so at the memory of pages underneath her fingertips. At least the prince isn’t blond in this one, if she remembers right, even though she’s fairly sure it’s a rule, that they ought to be. This one might as well be, anyway. Princes and knights and heroes, they all look the same.

“Never mind,” Chika says. “I think I’m too old to read these things anyway.”

“Oh? Really,” Noriko says, without bite. “I’m surprised you even own this series.” She glances at the book she’s placed spine-up on the floor. “I only read these things to make fun of them. How does this one end?”

“That’s the last volume.” She remembers now. She’s not sure which one of them died. Love hadn’t been enough, and they’d paid the price for it. She might’ve gotten upset about it for some time afterwards; feeling a little like she’d been conned.

Noriko frowns, kicking up one knee. She never wears skirts, of course. “I don’t like tragic stories,” she declares – Chika can see why – and goes on, loftily: “Ours would be different. Chikalin’s not a boy, for instance,” and here she laughs, “so that’s already a head start we’ve got on them. There won’t be any misunderstandings between us or anything like that.”

She laughs in turn, “I’m sure.”

There’s a wistful tone to her voice as Noriko says, “It’d be nice. I could hold your hands during scary movies and stuff.”

“You’d fill my lunchbox with vegetables first chance.”

She rolls her eyes, “Not my fault you only eat junk food.”

“I – meant it, by the way,” Chika blurts out, a moment later. Her cheeks color a little and the heel of her hand presses against her knee, and she almost winces. “I was wondering if… we could—”

At that Noriko stops glancing at her sidelong and looks at her, peering with hard, serious eyes. It’s kind of scary, actually – she’s acquainted with Noriko’s perchance for dramatic gestures and recognizes that meaningful look of hers a bit too well – and for a wild moment Chika wonders if she’s upset her, or if she’s set something off she shouldn’t have. If maybe Chika’s the only one whose heart is finally ready to give from all the chasing and pining.  

But Noriko breaks into a smile instead, small and earnest.

“I meant it too,” she replies, turning away, her eyes closing against the sunlight, and that concludes all that needed to be said between them, really.


End file.
